Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: this sequel, by co-directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson, picks up a touching, albeit minor, moment from the first film and transforms it into the cornerstone of its whole concept. It’s as if the essence of the character was distilled into its most basic components, providing a baseline of how the characters got there, but not necessarily how they will move from there. It’s a neat way of creating a world (or, more precisely, a multiverse, and again this is probably a more interesting implementation than most). That would be all meaningless if the central character wasn’t so nice, and the film spread the wealth by opening the focus and raising another Spider-Version to protagonism. They are both excellently defended by their voice actors, Hailee Steinfeld and Shameik Moore, who create heartfelt and touching performances. There are too many other performers to mention, but a few merit a note: Luna Lauren Velez, Brian Tyree Henry, and Shea Whigham as their loving parents, and Jason Schwartzman, as the main, unhinged villain.

The animation is, once more, a thing of wonder: its dynamism and fluidity match the Spider-characters very well. At the same time, the film always feels like it is directly out of a comic book page. The characters are nicely designed, and the film mixes and matches textures and styles to convey the multiplicity of origins of the many Spider-variants; production designer Patrick O’Keefe’s work is incredible. The film also makes great use of colour in some of its quietest moments, giving those scenes a very different feel than the rest of the movie.

Read also: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse